- 12 minutes ago
We’re starting things off with some rather chilling reports. First, we’ll hear about a woman who realized the woman in her mother’s casket was a stranger. After that, we’ll listen in to a researcher who claims that Harry Houdini didn’t die the way we all think he did. Then things get a bit lighter -- we’ll hear about the new George Lucas museum and the much-longer than 12 parsecs journey to establish it, and the first new species of cat discovered in more than a century.
Featuring audio from the Dana & Parks Show out of KMBZ in Kansas City, Paranormal 360 out of WCCO News and Talk in the Twin Cities, KNX News in Los Angeles, WBBM Newsradio in Chicago, KCBS Radio in the Bay Area and WTIC in Hartford.
Featuring audio from the Dana & Parks Show out of KMBZ in Kansas City, Paranormal 360 out of WCCO News and Talk in the Twin Cities, KNX News in Los Angeles, WBBM Newsradio in Chicago, KCBS Radio in the Bay Area and WTIC in Hartford.
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NewsTranscript
00:11Welcome to a Weird News Roundup, presented by Odyssey's Something Offbeat podcast.
00:16We explore strange tales reported on by Odyssey's radio newsrooms from coast to coast.
00:23I'm your Roundup host, Lauren Berry.
00:27Fall officially started this week, and we're starting things off with some rather chilling reports today.
00:33First, we'll hear about a woman who realized the person in her mother's casket was a stranger.
00:40After that, we'll listen to a researcher who claims that Harry Houdini didn't die the way we all think he
00:46did.
00:47Then, things get a bit lighter.
00:49We'll hear about the new George Lucas Museum, and the much longer than 12 parsecs journey to establish it.
00:57And we'll hear about the first new species of cat discovered in more than a century.
01:04Seeing a loved one in a casket is already difficult.
01:08For one woman grieving her mother, this experience became even more bizarre and painful last week,
01:15when she realized that something inside the coffin was very wrong.
01:20The Dana and Parks podcast out of Odyssey station KMBZ in Kansas City discussed the case this week.
01:27Kimberly Moore's family is grieving her death while also demanding answers about where her body is.
01:35Oh, God.
01:36And how a mix-up at a Detroit funeral home could even happen.
01:39Quoting here from Moore's daughter, Bianca,
01:42We need answers. This is crazy.
01:45We don't deserve this. She doesn't deserve this.
01:49Bianca Robinson went to the funeral home in Detroit on Friday to see her mother one last time before the
01:55viewing.
01:56She said she realized the body in the casket was not her mom.
02:03Says Robinson.
02:05I looked at her feet, and I didn't see that mole that my mom has on her feet.
02:09And I looked at the man, and I said,
02:11Sir, this is not my mom.
02:12And he said it just like this.
02:14He said, I'm sorry.
02:16They must have cremated your mom a week or two ago.
02:19I am so sorry.
02:21Robinson said the family still does not have the ashes that the funeral home claims might be her mom's.
02:27I wouldn't even believe it was my mom when they handed me the ashes.
02:31I'm just trying to figure out where's my mom.
02:34They went on and held the funeral service without her remains.
02:39Okay.
02:39As a funeral director, wouldn't you say,
02:41Hey, we're so sorry.
02:42We're going to try to figure out what happened.
02:44We're going to look into this.
02:44Not just come straight out with,
02:46Well, they probably cremated her last week.
02:48I'm telling you, Scott.
02:49I am starting to think this is the most loosely regulated industry that we don't know about
02:54because there is at least two stories in our stack a month about this.
03:00Sometimes it's remains are stacked up in the back.
03:03That happened here in Kansas City not too long ago.
03:05Sometimes it's the switcheroo.
03:07Sometimes it's we're not sure where she is.
03:09You know, we have ways of tracking an Amazon package of underwear from point A to point Z.
03:17True.
03:18Timelessly, seamlessly, you know exactly where it is.
03:21You get a text on your phone.
03:22Yep.
03:23It is at the warehouse in Lenexa.
03:25It will be delivered at 214.
03:26Oh, wait.
03:27Then you get a photo that it's been delivered.
03:29How is it so hard to keep track of whose body belongs to who?
03:32Dana, I had a refund check from Advent Health coming my way, and I called them because they
03:38wanted me to do it online.
03:40I'm like, I don't trust this email.
03:42And he said, well, it's already in the mail anyway.
03:43Would you like a tracking number on a $60 check?
03:47And I said, no, I trust you that it's on the way.
03:50Yeah, $600, I'd have a tracking number.
03:52Probably, but for $60, but I could track a check for $60 coming from about 10 miles from
03:59my house.
04:00Whether or not you get the right cremations back or remains.
04:06I looked at her feet, and I didn't see that mole that my mom has on her feet, and I
04:11looked
04:11at that man, and I said, sir, this is not my mom.
04:15Do open, or I don't know how to ask this question without sounding insensitive.
04:20Are open casket services.
04:21Is it weird?
04:22I think we're seeing less and less of it.
04:24I do not need to see the body.
04:26I think most people do not need to see the body.
04:29Family, like, in the immediate aftermath, absolutely that's different.
04:34But the displayed body, you know, that really harkens back to hundreds of years ago where
04:39we used to display our loved ones in the living room for days as people came by and offered
04:47their condolences.
04:49I don't know.
04:50For me, I would rather remember them the way they were.
04:54I would rather be remembered the way I was, not the embalmed, you know.
05:00Even when we go to a funeral, if I look down there and I see the open casket, I just
05:05go,
05:06oh, no.
05:07So I have never gone up to a casket, an open casket, except one time, and it was my dad's.
05:13Yeah.
05:14And you avoid it then in other circumstances?
05:17There was an open casket viewing for my grandmother and she had four grandkids, my brother and my
05:23two cousins and me.
05:25And we went to the funeral home for a private open casket viewing.
05:31No.
05:32My cousin Eric and I stood back.
05:34No, Michael and I stood back.
05:36My brother and Eric went up and viewed her body.
05:39Yeah.
05:39That was it.
05:41With my dad, we had a closed casket funeral, an open casket viewing the night prior.
05:49Was it helpful for you in any way?
05:51Yes.
05:52It was.
05:53For me, it was.
05:53For you, it was.
05:54Yes.
05:54I think you know as a human being whether that's helpful for you or not.
05:57Like, sure.
05:58I...
05:58This Halloween marks the 100th anniversary of Harry Houdini's death.
06:04Houdini was a famous illusionist and escape artist.
06:07And one researcher claims that the details around his death seem to be just as mind-bending
06:14as his performances.
06:16Dr. Larry and Gillespie joined Dave Schrader on the Paranormal 360 podcast out of WCCO News
06:23and Talk in the Twin Cities to discuss her research into Houdini's death, featured in
06:29her award-nominated book, Houdini, The Man Who Died Twice.
06:35Here's a little bit of their talk.
06:37The idea that Houdini didn't die the way we've been taught or believed all these years,
06:44when did that first pique your interest or come to your attention?
06:49This is a wild story.
06:51I had no interest in magic.
06:53I had no interest in Harry Houdini other than the average person who knows he was a magician,
06:59hung upside down.
07:00He died from a punch to the stomach.
07:03That was it.
07:04But I go to the Indy 500 every year.
07:08I'm a race fan.
07:10Okay.
07:10So on the plane, I met a gentleman who was going to teach the first course on Houdini
07:17at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
07:20We became friends.
07:21And over like five years, we've been going to the, we meet up at the Indy races.
07:25So I told him I would build him a website for the course.
07:30So that was March 5th.
07:32On March 5th, as I'm looking up material to include in the website, I see Houdini's death
07:39certificate and I know immediately it's a fraud.
07:43Really?
07:44The way, there are multiple telltale signs and other positions that I've shown it to now
07:50see the same thing the moment I show it to them.
07:53But there are ways of writing.
07:58There are punctuation statements that are changed language.
08:02There was information that I knew just in doing my basic research was incorrect, such that
08:10Houdini had been born in Appleton when we knew and the family knew they were all born
08:16in Budapest, Hungary.
08:18So I began to look at this and for reasons I cannot explain, I intuitively felt there were
08:26going to be three death certificates.
08:28Now, whether that was Harry telling me this or anything else, I can't tell you, but I began
08:36searching for more information.
08:38And this was, as I said, March 5th.
08:41My research continued as I was writing.
08:45So this book is actually an analysis of where I was finding stuff out about Houdini, how I
08:52was thinking about it and trying to find the reasons why I was seeing multiple
08:58discrepancies in evidence that I was now able to find.
09:03And being a surgeon, I had a different way of understanding words and could realize phrases
09:09that were used.
09:11Other statements could only come from someone who had seen an op report or had done other
09:17things.
09:17So that was the beginning of the book.
09:20And within three months of solid research and writing 12 to 14 hours a day, I had finished
09:28the book with a completely different understanding and a completely different explanation of what
09:35actually killed Harry Houdini and, in fact, how many were involved in his death.
09:40Can you give us, in the next few minutes here, just kind of a glossary overlook of what is
09:45the story we've all been led to believe or has been propagated for over 100 years now?
09:51The story has always been that a McGill student, who was later identified as Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead,
09:59punched Houdini unexpectedly, ruptured his appendix, and essentially killed him.
10:04What my book proves is that was never the case.
10:07Now, this wasn't like a bar fight that he got into.
10:11Houdini was, he took very good care of himself.
10:14He would allow people to punch him in the stomach from time to time, right, to show his prowess.
10:20And this guy caught him off guard, hit him.
10:22He died, right, on Halloween that he ended up.
10:25He actually didn't die on Halloween.
10:27That's another one of the myths.
10:29And the manipulation that I show was done by his PR agent, by his brother, Theo Hardeen.
10:37And by his lawyer are all the reasons behind it was all about money.
10:44You can listen to the full interview on the Paranormal 360 podcast, on the Odyssey app, or wherever you get
10:50your podcasts.
10:51Coming up next, we're learning about how the new George Lucas Museum came to L.A.
10:57and about the first species of cat discovered in more than a century.
11:02That's all on this Weird News Roundup presented by Odyssey's Something Offbeat.
11:07Thank you for listening to this special presentation of Weird News from Odyssey's Something Offbeat.
11:14From Darth Vader to Indiana Jones, filmmaker George Lucas is behind some of the most iconic characters and films in
11:23history.
11:24Now people can get a closer look at what is behind that magic at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
11:32Odyssey Station KNX News was at the opening this week.
11:36This marks the first day L.A.'s Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is open to the public.
11:42Craig Figner is more from Expo Park.
11:45I like the design.
11:45Yeah, the architecture is amazing.
11:47Yeah, you can't beat it.
11:48They did good.
11:49It was futuristic.
11:50It is extraordinary.
11:51The Lucas Museum here at Exposition Park.
11:53You walk up to this massive complex.
11:56At first glance, it feels like maybe two buildings.
11:58It's all one.
11:59On one side, you see a Naboo Starfighter.
12:01You go in through these glass-tubed elevators up to the fourth floor.
12:06And there's one section that's the cinema exhibit, Star Wars.
12:11But that's just 7% of everything that's here.
12:15So many originals, Rockwell's, there's a Van Gogh up there, there's a Picasso.
12:21It's the most amazing collection of paintings in Los Angeles.
12:24So this is more than Star Wars.
12:25Oh, it's much more than Star Wars.
12:27This is like a cultural monument for Los Angeles.
12:30Aside from the art, it is the cinema gallery with artifacts from Star Wars movies.
12:36That is a huge draw for most of the visitors I've been talking to.
12:41It kind of just makes you feel like you're in the movie.
12:45Definitely reliving your childhood.
12:46These are things we've seen before, but not in person.
12:49Yeah.
12:49Yeah, it's cool.
12:50Because, you know, you can see things from, like, Disneyland.
12:53But this is, like, a completely different experience.
12:56And it's got the peacefulness of a museum, but the enthusiasm of a theme park, almost.
13:02Yeah.
13:03It's fun.
13:04It's better than Disneyland.
13:06And by the way, did you see Darth Vader around the corner?
13:08I haven't.
13:09I'm about to.
13:10I'm about to.
13:10It was a little intimidating.
13:12Just a little bit.
13:12He's all right.
13:13At Exposition Park, I'm Craig Figner, KNX News.
13:17The museum is finally open, but the journey to get there might have been a bit more like
13:22that famous Raiders of the Lost Ark boulder scene than Lucas expected.
13:27It wasn't supposed to be in L.A. at all.
13:31But it got chased out of not one, but two cities.
13:35Here's Odyssey Station WBBM News Radio in Chicago to explain.
13:40The spaceship-looking building was originally planned for the south lot of Soldier Field.
13:45Months after George Lucas and his wife, Chicago native Melody Hobson, announced they would
13:50build along the Chicago lakefront open space preservationists that Friends of the Parks sued.
13:55After two years of legal battles, Lucas announced they were going back to California.
14:00At a star-studded opening party Saturday night, a deadline reported, Hobson said they did not
14:05realize how hard it would be to give a city a museum.
14:09Nancy Hardy, Newsradio 105.9 WBBM.
14:12And here's political insider Phil Mateer on Odyssey Station KCBS radio in the Bay Area,
14:19where Lucas himself is from, on how San Francisco also passed on the project.
14:27It's an interesting story because what we have here is, you're right, the Lucas Museum
14:31is opening in Los Angeles and it is what we call illustrative art.
14:36Now, the type of art that Lucas is putting on display is the art, paintings, sculptures and
14:42whatever, posters that tell a story.
14:45Probably the most famous example of this is the Last Supper or the Sistine Chapel or Washington
14:51Crossing the Delaware.
14:52And he wanted to bring his collection, including all the Star Wars, to San Francisco on the
14:57Presidio.
14:58And while San Francisco City Hall and Mayor Ed Lee and former Mayor Willie Brown and even
15:03Speaker Nancy Pelosi were big boosters of the plan, the Presidio Board of Trustees, which
15:09is appointed by the president, said no.
15:11They didn't thought it was too big and that it just didn't fit with the vibe that they
15:15wanted to have out at the Presidio National Park.
15:18So after three attempts, finally Lucas said nope and he moved on.
15:23First to Chicago and now to L.A. and we kind of blew it.
15:26Yeah, I mean, maybe the Presidio wasn't the best choice, but it still seems like it should
15:32be in the Bay Area, right?
15:34Well, yeah, well, the Presidio was was George Lucas's first choice and he wanted to have
15:39it facing the water.
15:40He wanted an impressive building out there.
15:42You have to understand that the Presidio Trust, that's a federal park.
15:46It's a federal park and it was built on the Nancy Pelosi, got it passed through Congress
15:50and it's built on the condition that it would be self-sustaining.
15:53It would make money for itself and a lot of people thought the Lucas Museum would be that,
15:58be a big draw for kids and families and tourists and maybe too big of a draw because what has
16:04happened is the Presidio, in addition to being a park, you may not know it, but it's also one
16:08of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Northern California.
16:12Oh, yeah.
16:12I mean, it's the people out there are nonprofits.
16:16Hedge funds have their offices out there and the rents on the former officers quarters are
16:22not cheap. And even though Lucas had an operation going in the hospital there,
16:27Letterman Hospital, where Lucas Films was operating before, once he came in with the big
16:32idea, they said too big. And I think part of it is because the board of directors on that
16:37Presidio Trust, they're some of the elites of San Francisco's business community and such,
16:42and they just still weren't too comfortable with it.
16:44Our final story today comes from the animal kingdom. A new species of cat has recently been
16:51identified. The first one in more than a hundred years. According to National Geographic,
16:58someone found the tiny creature on a roadway in Bolivia. Initially believing it to be a regular,
17:05domestic cat, Lori Fass of Pet Talk out of Odyssey Station WTIC in Hartford, Connecticut, discussed the
17:14discovery.
17:17Okay. Now, if you understand that this little cat is really little, it's like three pounds,
17:25tiny little cat, and lives in the jungles of Bolivia, it would be understandable that such a
17:34small little cat in the middle of the jungle might be overlooked. I mean, if you think about people
17:39whose cats get outside and they're not able to find them, and particularly if the cat doesn't want
17:45to be found or is frightened, it'd be pretty easy for some animal of that size to just kind of
17:52disappear
17:53and nobody would know it was there. But I think it's really kind of, I don't know, I think it's
17:58interesting and exciting to think that our world has animals existing in the wild that we don't know
18:07about. And if this little animal was most recently discovered and nobody knew it was there for the
18:14past hundred years, I wonder what other kinds of things might possibly be out there. I know that
18:20it's been said that what animals and fish and creatures exist in the ocean, we haven't completely
18:29scratched the surface on that. But apparently, you know, even on land, there are still things to
18:36discover and animals to learn about. And I guess what one of the things that happened with this new
18:47leopardist Tilkayo cat is that a kitten of this species was on the side of the road, or it was
18:58a
18:58little kitten that somehow got separated from its mother. And a person found it and picked it up and
19:04it was a tiny little cat. So they assumed it was a, you know, a cat, a domestic cat. Although
19:11the markings
19:12on it are very like leopard-like, like these very ornate looking rosettes, like you'd see on a
19:20jaguar or a leopard or something like that. So, you know, that might have, that might have been a clue.
19:27But anyway, so they took the little kitten and they were raising it and they had it for quite some
19:32time
19:34until they brought it to be looked at. And when they brought it to be looked at, it was discovered
19:41that no, this is not a little domestic cat. This is some sort of wildcat species. So at that point,
19:47the little cat was brought to a sanctuary and further examined. And that's when it was discovered
19:55that it is this leopardist Tilkayo related to some other cats. I'm not sure the exact logistics of that.
20:04But, you know, this has been on the news. You could just, if you want to learn more about it,
20:12you could just look up new species of wildcat. And I'm sure it would pop up because it's been
20:18all over. It's been all over and people have sent me things about it. And, you know, it just kind
20:25of
20:25pops up on different things. But it's a very cute little animal. I have to say that. So if you
20:31are into animals, you'd probably want to look at this thing. It's kind of amazing. I mean,
20:36it almost looks like it's a puppet or somebody made it up, you know, to think that this little
20:43three pound animal that has very round ears, big eyes, kind of stripes on each side of its eye,
20:51kind of going up its head, that this is a real live creature that people didn't know existed
20:59and probably existed for a very long time. But I think it's fun. I was happy to hear this. It
21:04was kind of, oh, interesting news to me. So if you like that sort of thing, if you haven't heard
21:11about it, I would think that you might want to go look it up. And that would be fun.
21:16Thank you so much for listening to this Weird News Roundup presented by Odyssey's Something
21:22Offbeat Podcast. This episode was written and produced by me, Lauren Berry. Special thanks
21:29to the Dana and Parks Show out of KMBZ in Kansas City, Paranormal 360 out of WCCO News and Talk
21:37in
21:38the Twin Cities, KNX News in Los Angeles, WBBM News Radio in Chicago, KCBS Radio in the Bay Area,
21:47and Pet Talk out of WTIC in Hartford. You can find these programs, including the Something
21:54Offbeat Podcast, on the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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